


Pâquerette

by writtenbytea



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Child Neglect, Coffee Shops, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Golden Boy Sora, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Neglect, Popular Sora
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 11:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18468235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writtenbytea/pseuds/writtenbytea
Summary: Riku just wants to keep his head down and try to survive his junior year. He works at Mickey's Coffee every morning before school, and studies his ass off all day because good grades are his only chance of getting out of this town and away from home. All of his plans change when a certain messy-haired, blue-eyed popular kid decides to befriend Riku, whether he likes it or not.





	Pâquerette

If Riku hadn't been aware of the laws of physics, he would be convinced that time within the walls of Mickey’s Cafe and Bakery passed slower than the rest of the world.

Granted, anyone waking up before eight in the morning on a Monday probably felt similarly, and considering Riku was only ever in the cafe for his morning shift from four am to eight am, it was especially so. From the graveyard hours where he had to get things baking and prepped for the day to the high school morning rush where caffeine junkies stumbled in, desperate for their fix before an eight hour day at Destiny High School—time always passed agonizingly. The people and faces and orders all ran together in an endless stream of _Oh, I wanted that hot_ and _I said no whipped cream_ and maybe the reason time moved so slowly was because Riku had to bite back his declarations that he was not, in fact, a mind reader and that if someone wanted something they had to actually say it or else take their drink and be happy with it—

Riku didn’t hate his job. His boss was nice, and he didn’t hate _all_ of his co-workers. He got to make himself a large drink of whatever he wanted before leaving for school, free of charge. It was a nice environment, very hipster with exposed brick and a huge chalkboard menu and all the lights dangled from the ceiling in cages even though light tended to pour in through the huge windows along the wall by the entrance.

But he spent most of his day at high school avoiding interacting with these kids, so the four hours of bending to their every coffee-related whim was the worst part of his day, second only to returning home at the end of it.

“Come on, Sora, we’re gonna be late!”

Riku glanced up as the bell above the door jingled cheerfully, and Riku bit back a curse. He’d thought that the last of the high school rush had passed. Axel, the college kid who was taking the next shift, wasn’t here yet which meant that if these assholes were going to be late, Riku would too.

He sighed and tucked the cloth he was wiping down the counter with into the apron tied around his waist and went to the register, only half-heartedly trying to hide his scowl.

Riku knew the people approaching the counter, had been in the same class with them since kindergarten, but Riku suspected they didn’t even know his name. That didn’t bother Riku—he liked to keep to himself, keep his head down, work hard and push through.

The girl who had spoken was Kairi, with whom half of the male population of the school was in love with, red hair flowing down to her shoulders, always wearing pink, always with that teasing tone in her voice and a look in her eye like she might tell you a secret if you were good. And then there was Sora, who looked half asleep, hair an eternal bedhead sticking out in every direction as if he had never heard of the concept of a hairbrush. His eyes—which were usually wide a blue and wore emotion as shamelessly as a puppy—were squinting at the chalkboard menu like he’d never heard of coffee before or maybe like he would prefer a shot of espresso injected directly into his bloodstream.

They were disgustingly popular. _Disgustingly_ being because they were _actually_ nice. If they were like the popular kids in movies, the mean cheerleader and the asshole quarterback, they’d be much easier to hate. But no, anyone who interacted with Kairi for more than eighteen seconds acted like they’d just encountered a siren or the goddess Aphrodite, bemoaning that they’d fallen in love and would never recover. Sora could talk to anyone and five minutes in be goofing around like they had been best friends for years; he was a bleeding heart and a people pleaser, doing just about anything to help just about anyone, supposedly from the goodness of his heart. Legend had it that Sora was involved in some form with every club at the school, because he couldn’t say no to people.

It was, as stated above, disgusting.

“Dirty chai?” Riku asked. Kairi came in three days a week and always ordered an iced dirty chai latte with two shots of espresso for herself and a large drip coffee to go.

“ _Extra_ dirty today,” Kairi said. “All-nighter for a physics exam.”

Riku raised an eyebrow at the boy who was doing an impressive impersonation of a zombie.

“What do you usually get me?” Sora asked around a yawn.

“Just a plain old coffee, dummy.”

“I need sugar,” Sora said.

“Then add sugar,” Kairi rolled her eyes.

Sora stepped sluggishly toward the counter and pouted at the menu. Riku turned to get started on the chai because it seemed Sora would be taking a while. He started the espresso machine, pumped some chai concentrate into a cup with ice, and poured over the milk. He glanced up only to see Sora looking right at him, suddenly more awake than he had been just moments ago. Instead of averting his eyes like any normal person, when Riku met his eyes Sora offered a grin, his signature, 1000 watt dazzler, 100 percent sincerity in every one.

So Riku was the one to avert his eyes, adding the _three_ shots of espresso (Kairi was the type of girl you either loved or feared, and Riku decided he was strongly on the side of _fearing_ her) to Kairi’s drink, putting a lid on it and sliding it onto the counter.

He returned his eyes reluctantly to Sora whose blue eyes were still trained on Riku like he was an excellent puzzle.

“You go to our school, right?” Sora asked.

Riku arched an eyebrow. “Yeah.” He resisted the urge to point out that they had been in the same class since they could walk.

“What do you like?” Sora asked. Riku blinked, and took a second longer than he should have to realize that Sora was talking about coffee.

“It’s all pretty good.”

“You have to say that,” Sora said. “What do you like to make for yourself?”

Riku usually experimented, trying out different combinations of ingredients beyond what was on the menu. “Depends on my mood,” Riku answered.

“Surprise me,” Sora said, showing no sign of frustration at the vague answer, eyes still sparkling like the afterglow of that smile earlier. Riku felt like he couldn’t look directly at him. He nodded once, then turned to the milk frother.

He moved on autopilot, throwing things together without thinking much. It was some sort of latte, with brown sugar and cinnamon and a little hazelnut. Something warm and sweet.

Riku slid the drink across the counter to Sora without any description, and Sora took it without complaint. He started to ring up the drinks, but couldn’t help but watch, somewhat pridefully, as Sora took a sip from the to-go cup.

Sora barely takes a sip before he looks up at Riku with those big blue Bambi eyes and he looks like a kid on Christmas morning.

“Wow! This is amazing!” He immediately turned back to the cup and took another sip. He turned to Kairi, his face growing serious. “This is amazing,” he repeated. “Who are you and where have you been all my life?

Riku tried to push down the embarrassment at the enthusiastic response, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck and pretending his face wasn’t heating up. “It’s just coffee.”

Sora once more turned his dazzling smile at Riku and Riku felt it burn into his mind the way staring at lights burn into the back of your eyelids, something that sticks with you long after the light goes out.

“I’m coming here _every day_ ,” Sora solemnly swore. “I’m drinking this drink _every day_ —no, you have to make me a new masterpiece every day!”

“No pressure,” Kairi said with a wicked little smile, and handed a card to Riku to pay for both of their drinks. Riku turned to the register, shaking his head free of the lingering warmth of Sora’s smile, reminding himself that he was there to do a job, and Sora and Kairi were there to exchange money for goods and services. That’s all.

When Riku returned Kairi’s card back, she was frowning at her phone. “Yep,” she said. “We’re gonna be late.”

Riku glanced at the corner of the register’s screen, seeing the time before the final bell rang. “Not if you leave through the back and cut through the art annex,” Riku muttered. He was used to having to make a break for classes, considering his shift generally let out with less than fifteen minutes before class started.

Sora impossibly brightened, holding his coffee with both hands like it was a treasure. “Awesome! We’ll follow you then.”

Kairi rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “I don’t know if that was an invitation, Sora.”

It hadn’t been. It had kind of just slipped out. But it _did_ sound like one, didn’t it?

“Um,” Riku said. “It’s no problem. I just have to wait for—”

As if on cue, the door to the shop opened with such force the door hit against the wall next to it, a loud bang sounding alongside the bells, and Riku saw his freedom appear in the form of a tall guy with fiery red hair and face tattoos.

“Him,” Riku finished, then turned to address Axel. “You’re late.”

“Time is but a construct, my dear Riku,” Axel said as he sauntered behind the counter, tying his apron around his waist.

“If only my homeroom teacher saw it that way,” Riku said, untying his own apron and examining his tshirt for residual flour or coffee stains. Satisfied with the lack of food adorning him, he looked at Kairi and Sora, who were waiting for him, who were watching his interactions with his co-worker, who were talking to him—and nodded at the door into the back kitchen area.

“Don’t touch anything,” Riku said and turned to walk through the easy swing door. He reached behind him and pulled the hairband out of his hair, letting his silver hair fall to his shoulders from the messy knot he kept it in when he was working, leaving the hairband on his wrist for later use and running a hand through his newly freed hair. He shouldered the backpack he kept stashed in the back, heard Sora and Kairi shuffling to follow him, and could _feel_ Axel withholding the need to tease him, something along the lines of _Finally made some friends, huh?_ or D _on_ _’t do anything I would do._

 He led them through the back area, which included the storage and the actual bakery—where the magic happens. That was where he and Mickey started their days, getting everything going for the day, prepping cookie dough and cake batter and pie crusts and starting to bake the bread from dough from the night before.

Sora, it seemed, only needed those few sips of caffeine to have woken up completely. He oohed and ahed at everything they passed in a seemingly endless stream of chatter that was simultaneously annoying and charming. It went something like this:

“Oh wow I’ve never been in an industrial kitchen like this, I mean I’ve never worked at a restaurant or anything but this is so cool, those ovens are huge, is that where you do all the baking? How much of the baking do you do? Wow! I can barely make brownies from a box mix. I think I’m one of the people who’s better at cooking because you can just throw things in, baking is so much like a fine science and, well, my grade in chemistry right now is _not_ great so—”

And so on. Riku caught Kairi’s eye and she offered a sly smile as if to say, _yes, he_ _’s always like this_.

It took another minute after they’d exited out the back—cutting off a few minutes of time to walk around the block of shops—before Sora finally stopped his line of chatter and said, “We should hang out.”

“Uh,” Riku said. “Sure.” He said it in the way that people said things like _I_ _’ll text you over break! We’ll keep in touch!_ or _Let_ _’s get coffee sometime!_ when both parties knew damn well it wasn’t going to happen.

But Sora just grinned with an oddly devious twinkle in his eyes and somehow Riku felt like he’d just sold his soul but couldn’t bring himself to really regret it.

Then Sora ran—almost _skipped_ , really, a little step-hop that displayed far too much energy for eight in the morning—across the school’s parking lot toward the door to the art annex, pulling the heavy door open and holding it with a grand _after you_ gesture to Kairi and Riku to go through.

Riku raised an eyebrow to Kairi who seemed unphased by the behavior. Riku wasn’t _surprised_ , necessarily—he’d been distantly watching Sora’s antics since they were kids, but it was a different thing to experience it firsthand.

“You’ll get used to him,” Kairi said, knowing, a combination of teasing and comforting.

_I doubt that_ , Riku thought. For someone like Riku, talking to Kairi and Sora was like a celebrity encounter—not unheard of, but not long-lasting. A tiny, brief moment where you’re hyperaware of everything and later you’ll tell all your friends about it in detail and describe it using words like “magical” but by then the moment’s passed and eventually it fades from memory until it’s just a bright, star-studded blur.

Riku didn’t respond, just hastened toward the entrance to the art annex where Sora was overexaggeratedly tapping his foot in a display of impatience.

“Yeah, yeah, idiot,” Kairi said with a good natured eyeroll as she stepped through the open door. “Not all of us can be revived with half a sip of coffee.”

“It’s ‘cause you’re not drinking Riku’s _sacred_ coffee,” Sora said with an eyebrow waggle as Riku followed both of them through the entryway and down the hall.

Without pause, Kairi swiped the paper cup from Sora’s hand and stole a sip before swiftly returning it to his hands. “Shit, that’s good.” Sora didn’t even look offended at the theft, just raised his eyebrows and nodded as if to say _I know, right?_

Riku was so caught up in watching the exchange that he didn’t realize Sora had used his name.

Huh. So maybe he _had_ paid some attention over the last few years.

The bell rang, that shrill, cliche sound, and cut through the moment like butter. Sora jumped.

“Race you to homeroom?” he asked Kairi.

Kairi rolled her eyes for all of a minute before taking off down the rapidly emptying hallway.

“Cheater!” Sora called, and sprinted off after her.

Riku blinked at Sora’s retreating back. Riku didn’t bother rushing—his homeroom teacher knew about his situation and generally gave him a five minute leeway on attendance. He started to turn to walk down the hall the other way when he saw Sora turn toward Riku without slowing and called, “Thanks, Riku! See you around!”

Then he collided head-on with a teacher. Riku winced as Sora began to schmooze his way out of punishment—likely without even trying. Sora could just be himself for thirty seconds before the teacher would decide that he was harmless, not unlike a small puppy, and would let him go. Riku doubted anyone could go head to head with those blue eyes and come out alive.

Riku felt his lips twitch into a smile for just a moment—

Before heading to class. And back to reality.

 

*

 

He slid into class mostly unnoticed; at this point in the year no one questioned his tendency for tardiness, him having talked to the teacher and most of the students used to it. He sunk into his seat in the back corner, next to the petite blonde girl he called his best (read: only) friend, Namine. She was curled with her feet up on the seat, which teachers to this day tried in vein to correct, a sketchbook resting on her knees and a colored pencil shading avidly. She offered a small smile and a tilt of her head in Riku’s direction at his arrival, eyes still trained on the drawing.

“I miss anything?” Riku asked.

Namine turned her sketchbook to face Riku wordlessly. It was filled with doodles, the most prominent being a profile view of a boy from two rows up with his finger deeply entrenched in his nose. Namine offered a shy smile that Riku identified as devious, but no one aside from him would ever suspect Namine of such a thing. She was an avid people watcher, tended to stick to the outskirts and watch things unfold and capture them in her sketchbook and take those strangers’ secrets to the grave—save her ocassionally showing Riku.

Riku huffed a small laugh. That was what he loved about Namine—neither of them had to talk. They were both comfortable in their quiet companionship on the edges of life. They would be the ones who stayed glued to the wall at parties, if they were the type of people who went to parties.

Homeroom was pointless as ever—generally just a holding pen for attendance or a channel for the odd announcement or Important Paperwork to be handed out.

“Axel late as usual?” Namine asked.

“Yeah,” Riku said. Paused. “Plus there was a… thing.” Namine waited, said nothing, not like Riku expected her to. “With Sora and Kairi.”

Namine tilted her head in question— _Oh? Do go on_.

Riku didn’t, just half-shrugged.

“They’re friends with something like 95 percent of our junior class,” Namine mused, “it was only a matter of time before they made their way to you.”

Riku rolled his eyes, remembering that just because Namine was his only friend didn’t mean he was Namine’s. Kairi was, if not related to her by blood, then something equivalent to a distant cousin in terms of occasionally-seeing-each-other-at-family-gatherings status, and so she had grown up playing with Kairi and Sora at the odd barbecue, holiday, or reunion. Even if they didn’t hang out now, they had been friends in some sense of the word at one point, if they weren’t still today.

And come to think of it, there wasn’t really anyone Riku could think of that _wouldn_ _’t_ call Sora and Kairi friends. He looked around the classroom and could easily imagine any of them chatting with Kairi in the halls or in some club or another with Sora.

So maybe there was a shred of truth to that. Maybe Riku was just their next victim.

Something about that had disappointment sinking in Riku’s gut. He was just one of many in a sea of Sora-and-Kairi admirers, graced with their brief and charming presence for a morning.

Riku huffed out a dry laugh. “Something like that,” he said.

 

*

 

The rest of the day passed as normal, for which Riku was grateful. He was able to hide in the back of class as he always did, keeping his head down and focusing on his work. And that was what he did best. Junior year meant the stakes were high and his classes were difficult and that was exactly the way he liked it—feeling like what he was doing mattered. Because to him, it mattered more than anything. His classes, his grades, his work were his ticket out of the sleepy town. He was in AP Spanish, Japanese 4, and German 3, not to mention his core classes of AP Stats, AP English Language, and AP Government and Politics to round it out. He’d always had a knack for languages, found the nuance fascinating and the allure of getting to one day actually put it into the practice while seeing the world was even more appealing. He had the grades. God knew he had more than enough trauma to write a killer personal essay about.

He just needed to push through another year and a half.

Riku adjusted his backpack on his shoulders as he walked home from school, a twenty minute journey that was nice in the summertime but barely bearable in the depths of winter. It was October, the air just starting to turn crisp, and already Riku dreaded the months where slogging home through the snow felt like journeying across worlds. He technically had his permit to learn to drive, but besides not having a car, he didn’t exactly trust his mom to be the best teacher.

The thought had him scowling to himself as he trudged slightly uphill, seeing his house down the street. It wasn’t the best neighborhood, that was damn sure, but it had its charm. It was pedestrian friendly with sidewalks, despite the sidewalks being cracked with weeds growing around the edges; the streets were lined with trees, although they were never well maintained and at this point, as leaves were beginning to fall, the sidewalk and associated weeds were barely visible beneath the crunching dead leaves. The houses were small and unassuming, mostly vinyl-lined, at first glance the American Dream of a suburb before you noticed that a lot of the houses had boards or tarp subbing in for a broken windown.

It was all quite a metaphor, if you wanted to go there. At first glance, unassuming, before you realize that something darker lay within.

Riku approached his own home, with the sunny blue exterior and the small lawn of dying grass. At one point, when Riku was young, his mom had maintained a garden out here—trimmed hedges, lilac and hyacinth and tulips and azalea popping out from the ground every spring. That was ages ago, though. The area that had once held the garden was now old, dry mulch and hard ground, empty save for weeds. His mom’s ancient Ford was rusting in the street in front of the house. Every once in awhile Riku’s mom would use it to journey down to her “job” at the convenience store a mile away. “Job” in quotations because she’d been fired a dozen times after not showing up, or showing up high, yet once a month she’d show up there sober and insist she was turning over a new leaf and her boss let her work a couple shifts even though he definitely didn’t believe her.

Riku grabbed the mail before opening the door—not locked, as usual, nothing worth stealing or protecting. He shuffled through the envelopes. Bills—gas, water, electricity due in a week, internet and phone in two days. The door banged shut behind him and Riku slipped off his backpack as he entered the living room, dropping it onto the couch. The mess of the house was likely offputting, but familiar to Riku. He was used to dropping his backpack onto piles of laundry abandoned before folding, the small space of the living room littered with everything from books to lighters to food wrappers. The coffee table was covered in suspicious stains, old magazines, and a small space had been made on the table that had a dusting of white poweder on it that Riku pointlessly hoped was not what he thought it was. Riku trekked forward into the kitchen, putting the bills down at the table to deal with later.

Four hours a day at Mickey’s wasn’t much, but they paid well above minimum wage and he made good tips. If they had to pay rent, they’d be fucked, but the old house was Riku’s grandmother’s when she’d first come to the U.S. so they actually owned it. So Riku only had to worry about bills and enough groceries not to starve and hiding the rest of the money away so his mom wouldn’t find it.

He quietly padded over to his mom’s bedroom, the door open just a sliver, and pushed it open an extra inch to peek through. She was alone, thank God, and sleeping on top of the covers, still wearing her jeans for who-knew-how-many days in a row. Her mouth hung open and if not for the fact that Riku was used to this, he would have thought she were dead if not for quiet snores.

She was thin and frail, all bones and pale skin and tired eyes. She’d been beautiful once, her hair dark and wavy as it framed her face. Now it was knotted and lifeless. Riku thought he probably should have resented her for everything, and at times he did. But he couldn’t _really_ blame her. She’d been through a lot. Suffered a lot. If various… substances helped… Maybe Riku couldn’t blame her.

But it didn’t mean he didn’t want to get away.

There it was. The reason Riku had been killing himself over schoolwork since middle school, the reason he’d started mowing lawns at age ten for extra cash and started working at Mickey’s at fourteen, before he even started drinking coffee himself. The reason he was doing anything and everything he could to make sure he could get as far away from the town of Destiny as possible and never be like Mallory with all of her vices.

He tiptoed to the kitchen, getting a glass of water from the tap and three tablets of ibuprofen, returning to his mother’s bedside and putting it on the table next to her. Even as silently as he moved, long used to the routine, Mallory stirred upon the soft sound of glass being set on table.

She groaned softly as her eyes blinked open. Riku froze and watched as she shuffled, turning onto her back with great effort and sitting up.

“What time is it?” she asked groggily, taking the aspirin and water from the bedside table. Riku wondered if she made the connection of them and him, or if she just thought they magically appeared there each day. She quickly threw back the pills.

“Just past three,” Riku said. Early, for her.

His mom hummed as she sipped he water, then finally raised her eyes to Riku, as if recognizing him finally as her son.

“Come here, my love,” she said, holding out a hand. Riku stepped forward and let her put a hand on his cheek. At one point the gesture might have warmed him, at another it may have made him angry. Now, he didn’t feel anything. It gave him a good view of a particularly fresh looking track mark on her arm. “You look tired.”

“So do you,” Riku said.

His mom pressed her lips together and studied Riku with concern in her eyes that almost had Riku recoiling from her touch, but only almost.

“I’m back to work this week,” she said. “I have a couple of shifts down at the Circle K.”

“Okay,” Riku said, voice carefully level. She always had shifts at the shop, but very rarely made it to them.

“You should tell that Mickey not to work you so hard,” she said through a yawn. “ _I_ can get back to taking care of _you_.” This was another thing she said a lot. _I_ _’m back to work for real this time, you don’t have to work so hard, why don’t you quit that job of yours and we can have some bonding time, I’ll take care of everything_. The longest she’d ever lasted was a week.

“Sure,” Riku said, carefully noncommittal.

Mallory frowned and finally removed her hand from Riku’s cheek.

“Ansem is coming over tonight,” she said. “’S that okay?”

Ansem was Mallory’s most recent in a line of shitty boyfriends, all of which had a seemingly endless supply of drugs and issues. Ansem was the worst yet, though. The others had at least minded their own business, but Ansem had an interest in Riku that made him feel sick whenever he looked at him. He wasn’t the first of Mallory’s boyfriends to flirt with him, or hit him when he told him to fuck off, but he was the first one that Riku didn’t think he could beat in a fight.

“Yeah,” Riku lied. “I was actually gonna sleep over at Namine’s.” Also a lie. He hadn’t been planning on it, but now he definitely was.

“Okay,” Mallory said with a soft smile. “I love you.”

Riku turned and left, closing the door behind him. He started composing the text to Namine as he crossed the living room to his own bedroom, closing the door behind him.

_Can I stay at yours tonight?_ He sent.

Riku’s room was pointedly different from the rest of the house. He kept things neat and orderly—or, as neat and orderly as a teenager could keep things. Made his bed every morning, kept the floors clean of clothes and garbage, did his own laundry regularly. His room was the calm within a storm, the only thing in the house he had control over.

_Of course_ , came Namine’s quick reply. _Ansem?_

Riku confirmed this, and Namine responded with a frowny face, and then Riku buckled down to do homework. He’d have hours before either Ansem or Mallory were functional, and those hours made up his prime study time. He only had a few assignments for the night, but had a few upcoming tests. He buckled down with some flashcards, and let the time pass by. When the time came, he’d slip out of the house without a goodbye, hope for nice weather in the forty minute walk to Namine’s house. He’d climb in through her window—only on the first floor, thankfully. He’d slip out the next morning before her parents woke to give Namine a lecture about why boys and girls can’t sleepover together. He’d sneak back to his own place for a shower before booking it to Mickey’s for his 4am shift. And the whole process would start over again.

Work. School. Mom. Homework. Escape. Rinse, repeat.

He couldn’t help but think of Sora’s solemn vow to return to Mickey’s every day for a new concoction, but he doubted anything would come of it. Encounters like this morning were just brief forays into friendship and socializing that would never be the norm for someone like him. He was better unattached, focusing on his work, not letting anyone else get involved in the mess of his life. He infringed on Namine enough as it was. He knew deep down he was better alone.

But then, Riku was always a pessimist.

Maybe, just maybe, Sora might surprise him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title means "daisies" in French but mostly it's from the With Confidence song that has nothing to do with this fic but which I enjoy tremendously.  
> First chapter is really just introducing a lot of things that will be way more deeply explored! Riku's shitty home life? Riku budding friendship with Kairi and Sora? Riku and Sora being gay? This, my friends, is only the beginning!  
> "Original" characters are inspired by Disney characters--like "Mallory" is very loosely inspired by Maleficent, but I cannot with a straight face write Maleficent as a nuanced and realistic character in a modern setting so here I am.  
> High School AUs are the air I breathe. I hope you guys can enjoy this a fraction as much as I do.  
> Obvious, but comments of any kind will make my day, water my crops, etc. Please let me know what you think.


End file.
